Very unusual day yesterday. Started off crazed and very upsetting - after 2 1/2 hours of sleep under the new sedative, I finally cracked and took a xanax (tho' forbidden by the oh-so-insightful clinic doctor). I spent the day completely zombified, babysitting rather than teaching.

Our family doctor, nonplussed at the sedative's total lack of effect on my insomnia, took the remaining pills away from me and disposed of them. Then we got into my escalating problems. She was blunt.

"If you can't get to sleep, that's anxiety. If you can't stay asleep, that's depression."

She showed me a hand-written list of depression symptoms. I have them all, with the possible exception of suicidal tendencies (although it's been a frequent thought, I've never done anything about it). She gave me a 'scrip for anti-depressants along with stern injunctions to seek personal counselling and effective birth control. The second relates to the inadvisability of conceiving with several powerful drugs coursing through the body. I suppose the first is obvious.

When I got to my parents' house, I discovered that we were going to dinner and a movie with the Summers and their daughter Bee (who I've written about more than once but never bothered to pseudonym - she's the one I've known since Sunday School who did her masters in English at U of T just as I was finishing my bachelors).

I was utterly charmed by "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," wincing as some of my own marital experiences unspooled on the screen. Dinner was a bit strange as the conversation constantly shifted between the mundane and the deadly serious. Apparently Bee is also clinically depressed, so we were able to bond over the experience of being educated, sedated, and frustrated. (Also, she's been popping into Dark Raves, leading to many imagined scenarios in which we do the dark thing together.) She's unemployed at the present, something I can't help but pine for myself. Not that it wouldn't create more problems than ever...

Eventually our parents, not-so-subtly delighted that their depressed daughters seemed reasonably happy with each other, suggested that we hit the town. She called one of her many suitors and soon we were off to a local dive for karaoke night. I drank a pint (yes, bad girl) and sang a Specials song and giggled and smoked her cigarettes. It was the happiest I've been in ages. Yes, it was not the kind of good time that I can try for on a regular basis; it's far too dangerous to build alcohol into a medicated depression. Still, it beat the hell out of sitting alone in my house, crying too hard to pretend that I could be anywhere else. And I really enjoyed the time with Bee; it strikes me as amusing that with everything wholesome we have in common (church, education, parents who are friends), we will probably end up bonding over depression and a mutual enjoyment of men in black dresses.

My mother has decided to buy a new car. In practical terms this means that the White Man's Burden has now passed from our hands into those of the original owner, and a new car (i.e. my mother's) has assumed the mantle of the HMSS Lassitude. I think I'm actually going to miss the Burden - it was ugly and screechy and generally without grace, but it was solid and forthright. The new purple Lassitude is peppier, but also flightier. Tiny motions of my hands will influence my path in the purple Lassitude, whereas the Burden required major effort just to turn the wheel a few notches. The Burden was rumoured to be invulnerable, while the purple Lassitude has no such claim.

Ah, well. At least the insurance payments will be the same. But as we're not able to pay anything right now, my parents will go on covering our asses. I long for the day when I am both happy and solvent.